


Homeward Bound (I Wish I Was)

by usernicole



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Developing Relationship, Kid Fic, M/M, Minor Connor Bowers/Richie Tozier, Pre-Slash, smau tie-in, way out in the water, woitw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:42:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27143335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/usernicole/pseuds/usernicole
Summary: Winding down.tie-in fic for @woitw_au on twitter
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 10
Kudos: 84





	Homeward Bound (I Wish I Was)

**Author's Note:**

> hey! if you're here and you haven't read my social media au, what are you doing???? you're not gonna know what's going on, ya dingus!! [you gotta check it out first!](https://twitter.com/woitw_au)
> 
> for anyone coming from the au: heeeeyyyyyyyyy
> 
> tbh i RARELY read prose tie-ins to smaus. i think a part of me feels like it's cheating? like, making a smau in general is rebelling against the typical fic format. it's more interesting to me to try and tell the story WITHOUT doing this
> 
> BUT!!!! i really wanted to do this, both because i couldn't figure out how to put this in the smau in a way that was effective and also because i have over 200 followers now! holy shit! thanks guys
> 
> also MUCH thanks to my good friend who did a quick and dirty read through of this for me. thank u for being the best beta and also being the best cheerleader. eddie c and ACK love u and so do i
> 
> anyway. here it is. i hope u enjoy it! 
> 
> title is from the simon & garfunkel song

The front door to Richie’s house was fucking stuck.

Eddie cursed under his breath, cold fingers fumbling the keys. He twisted the house key as hard as he could, and pushed his shoulder up against the door for good measure. Behind him, Richie and Bill waved towards where Ben’s car sat idling on the street, making sure they got inside before heading home. The door would not budge.

“Uh,” Bill said, realizing Eddie’s plight. “Y-you want me to do it? It’s kind of tricky sometimes.”

Eddie wanted Bill to shut the fuck up about it. “Please,” he said, moving aside so Bill could manhandle the door open. 

He turned to Richie then. The orange glow of the porchlight cast deep shadows across his tired face. All in all, they had been at the hospital for over three hours. “How’s he doing?” Eddie asked, voice low.

“He’s  _ out," _ Richie said. He adjusted his hold on the sleeping boy in his arms. The change in position shifted Andy’s little face until it was exposed to the light. The sight of dried tears on his cheeks sent a jolt of pain through Eddie’s heart. “Whatever the doctors gave him, it must be good as hell.”

Eddie hummed. There was a loud creaking, and a small, triumphant noise from Bill. Richie turned towards the door, and Andy’s arm fell with the movement, the cheery orange of his new cast dull in the low light. Eddie found himself tucking it back across Andy’s stomach, before he really knew what he was doing. He didn’t like seeing his arm dangling like that, limp. He avoided Richie’s eyes as he moved back. 

“You really ought to fix that door,” he said, stepping aside so Richie could enter. Bill disappeared down the hall towards his room. “A little WD-40 and it’s smooth sailing.” 

“I’ll put it on the list,” Richie sighed. Eddie held the door open as he gently maneuvered through the small entryway. Bill’s head popped out of his doorway, phone pressed to his ear.

“Uhh are y-you guys good?” he asked. It was four in the morning and he was still wide awake, which confirmed some suspicions Eddie had about his sleeping habits. “You need help getting him to bed?”

“Go on,” Richie said. “We got ‘im.”

Eddie wasn’t sure about that “we.” These days, he rarely felt he had a handle on anything. He shifted, and his feet squelched in his wet shoes. In all of the panic down at the quarry, he had managed to grab his sad little duffle bag from the back of Richie’s car, so he had been able to change into dry clothes at the hospital. He could feel the grime of the quarry water on his skin and in his hair, which was sticking up all over the place from all the times he had tugged at it in worry and frustration. All of this combined with the fact that he had spent the last few days sleeping in the backseat of a car, Eddie was sure he looked like he was half dead.

The entryway was cramped enough that Eddie could feel the warmth radiating off of Richie and it made him feel restless. He became very aware of the fact that he probably smelled like mildew. He knelt down and began the process of peeling his shoes off of his feet. 

“Hey, uh,” Eddie said, grimacing down at his socks, “thanks for letting me stay tonight.”

“Are you kidding me? It’s four in the morning. You saved my kid’s life. What do you take me for, a monster?”

“I don’t know about.. all that.” Eddie stuffed his damp socks into his shoes and stood back up. Richie was slightly slumped against the wall behind him, his head dislodging a framed photo of Andy and what must be Richie’s parents. “I probably overreacted.”

He’d definitely overreacted. As soon as he’d realized what was about to happen he was gone, out of the Mustang and into the open air. By the time he reached the edge of the cliff, Andy and Stan were ripples on the surface of the black water, and then Eddie was jumping.

“Better than underreacting and freezing up like a little bitch,” Richie said bitterly. He ran one hand through Andy’s hair, smoothing the streak of hot pink at the front. Back at the hospital, Bev had complimented him on the dye job, and Andy almost smiled. “Baby Boy is taking a stand against toxic masculinity,” Richie had said, kissing Andy on the top of the head. 

“Hell yeah,” Bev had responded, tugging gently on the piece of hair, gaze uncharacteristically soft. “Stick it to the man.” 

“Shut the fuck up,” Eddie said, pushing lightly at Richie’s shoulder. “Don’t talk like that. You were right there when I pulled him out. What do you think you should have done? Drove the car into the lake?”

Richie shrugged, sliding further down the wall. Andy had to be getting heavy by now, but Richie didn’t show any sign of it. From the time Eddie carried a crying Andy out of the dark water, Richie had the boy in his arms, hugging him and rocking him and singing silly little songs to get him to stop crying. Eddie had filled out all of the paperwork back at the emergency room, murmuring questions to Richie and diligently writing all of the proper information. Richie was all smiles, then, where Andy could see him. Now he looked smudged around the edges, bleary. 

“You want me to take him?” Eddie offered, nodding down at Andy. 

Richie reflexively tightened his grip. “No, I’m good.” He pushed up and off the wall, groaning. “ _ Jesus. _ I’m too old for this shit.” He started down the hallway. Eddie padded after him with his bare feet, not yet comfortable enough in the house to be left alone. 

“Too old for what?” Eddie asked. They passed Bill’s room on the way to the stairs. Through the crack in the door Eddie could see him sitting in front of a desktop computer, murmuring quietly into his phone. “Staying up until four in the morning or having your son kidnapped?”

“All of the above, and also too old to carry him like this. Fuck, I remember when I could hold him in one arm.” 

The wall alongside the stairs was covered in picture frames. Ascending, Eddie took them in, gaze meeting those of Richie’s family and friends. And Connor. Connor looked down at Eddie from several points. He had his arm over Richie’s shoulders. He was flipping off the photographer with both hands. He was holding a tiny baby Andy up against his chest. Eddie looked away, up at Richie’s broad back in front of him. 

“So he was a baby when you adopted him?” Eddie asked, in the interest of making small talk. They reached the second floor of the house. Richie nodded at a light switch near Eddie’s shoulder, and Eddie flipped it, bathing the hallway in yellow light. 

“Fostered first. And he wasn’t like a baby-baby,” Richie said, heading towards a door covered in stickers and taped up drawings. “He was three when it all became official. But I knew him when he was a baby-baby. Connor would babysit him, sometimes. You wouldn’t believe the shithole Con’s cousin was living in at the time. Half the time, Henry would drop Andy off and I’d dunk him straight in the bath. I used to joke about stealing him.” 

Eddie opened the door to Andy’s room and Richie stepped in, moving over to the bed and gently laying Andy onto it. Eddie flipped another light switch, and a rocket ship lamp lit up on the bedside table. Andy’s room was a riot of color, the walls covered in posters and drawings and dinosaur wallpaper, the floor covered in toys. Eddie didn’t understand how Richie didn’t trip over any of them. “Some joke,” he said, and Richie laughed under his breath.

“Yeah, not so funny now.” Andy was dead to the world, curled up on top of his dinosaur bed sheets. Richie started wrangling him out of the grimy pajamas he was wearing. “Hey, could you get him a new pair of PJs out of the top drawer over there? Anyway, he was better off with us, even then. Henry was dogshit, and Andy’s mom got out of there before Andy even turned one. A couple of years later, Henry was in prison and me and Con were there. So.”

Eddie handed Richie a pair of fuzzy How The Grinch Stole Christmas pajama bottoms and a t-shirt with a green square monster on it. “So it was, what? A happy accident? Were you guys planning on adopting before that?”

Richie snorted. “Nothing about the process of adopting Andy was an accident. It was the hardest shit I’ve ever done.” He finished dressing Andy and began the process of tucking him in. “And, I mean. Before that? I never even  _ thought _ about being a dad. Everyone I knew thought I was fucking crazy, including Connor. Like, we were married at that point, but having kids had barely even come up between us. And knowing me, back then?” Richie made a “pfft” noise. “I can’t believe anyone allowed me to be in charge of anything, let alone a human child. But I don’t know. Andy was such a good kid. You’ve seen him. The kid just adores everything unconditionally. He was just really obviously starving for like, love and attention. And I guess I felt like I needed to be the one that would give it to him.” Richie shrugged, and bent down to kiss Andy on the head. 

Eddie didn’t know what to do with his hands. He felt like he was taking up too much space in this little room, like he shouldn’t be there. The sight of Richie (tender, soft in the dim light, using one big hand to brush Andy’s hair behind his ear) was too much for Eddie (sleep-deprived, miserable, hovering anxiously to the side) to handle. Eddie had never felt what Richie was describing, the need to love someone, to take care of them. Eddie had always been taken care of. 

Richie looked up at him, his smile lop-sided so one eye closed just a bit more than the other. He looked tired, and rumpled, and just a bit sad. He looked warm and big and welcoming and it made Eddie ache. He realized he was discovering what that need felt like in real time. 

Eddie fought through the lump in his throat. “He’s lucky,” he said. “To have you, I mean.” Eddie wanted to be lucky, too. 

Richie shook his head. “No, not really.” He stood upright. “Come on, let’s get you set up on the couch.”

He brushed past Eddie and out of the bedroom. The sensation of his touch vibrated through Eddie like an electrical current, and feeling he craved as soon as he lost it. Before he followed, Eddie looked back at Andy, all tucked in, his little orange cast pushed up under his chin. It was like Eddie had stepped into a world he didn’t belong to, a little pocket dimension sweeter and warmer than his own. He thought of the house he lived in with Myra, with its pristine, empty rooms. He thought about bland dinners in their formal dining room, completely silent, and dodging questions about grandkids on rare visits to his mother’s, and lying on his back in the backseat of Richie’s Mustang, envisioning the rest of his life and feeling nothing but dread. Then he reached over and flipped the light switch, and turned to follow Richie to the couch. 

He found Richie sitting with his back against the wall outside of Andy’s bedroom, his long legs pushed out as far as they could in the cramped hall. He was crying. 

“Oh shit,” Richie said, at the sight of Eddie. He turned away and started swiping at his eyes with both hands. “Oh geez.”

“Uh,” Eddie said, closing the door to Andy’s room as quietly as he could. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Richie replied, voice thick. He still wasn’t looking at Eddie. “I’ll set up the couch downstairs soon. Don’t worry, it’s all good.”

Eddie’s brows furrowed. “Christ, Richie. I don’t give a shit about that. What’s wrong?”

“It’s stupid.”

“Rich--”

“Honestly, it is.” Richie dropped his head back against the wall with a dull thud. “I thought I was over this.”

“Over what?”

From his position on the floor, Richie raised his arms and gestured vaguely at his chest, then at Andy’s room. “Fucking...This! I had uh...I had a kind of separation anxiety issue, after Connor...you know.” He shrugged. “I guess I still have it. I spent all that money on therapy for nothing.”

“That’s not how it--” Eddie made a frustrated noise, and clumsily sat on the floor beside Richie, stretching his legs out in front of him. “That’s not how it works, shithead. What’s going on?”

“I just...I got out here, and I thought, ‘What the hell are you doing? Why are you leaving him?’” He jerked his head back in Andy’s general direction. “Way back when it happened, I couldn’t be without him. My brain convinced itself that if I couldn’t see Andy, he would disappear, or I would disappear and leave him alone, or any number of other stupid scenarios that I could think of. I don’t think I went five minutes without him for over a year. It was stupid, and bad for Andy. It messed him up a bit, when I was trying to fix it. He didn’t know what it meant to not have me there.”

“So just now, I went to go to the fuckin’...linen closet or whatever, and I thought, ‘He managed to get snatched with you in the next room like five hours ago, and here you are abandoning him again.’” 

“Jesus, Rich.” Eddie shook his head. “You know that’s not what happened, right?” 

“I don’t know!” Richie sighed heavily. “I don’t fucking  _ know _ what happened. What I know is that I somehow missed someone coming into my house and stealing my kid. I just fucking let it happen!”

“He had a key, Richie,” Eddie said. “He didn’t exactly throw a brick through your window.”

“It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t fucking matter.”

“He’s fine. He’s right behind us, sleeping away. I’m sure tomorrow you’re going to go out and buy him a hundred different colors of sharpies and he’s going to ask every person he sees to sign it. Even like, strangers and inanimate objects. In a few weeks it’s going to be like this never happened.”

Richie crossed his arms tight over his chest. “I know that. Like, I  _ know _ that, but...I can’t help it.” 

Eddie huffed and slumped further down the wall, bending his knees. It’s not like he knew what it was like, that primal fear. He didn’t know what it felt like to lose someone, not really. But then again, he had jumped off a cliff earlier that night, no hesitation. Maybe he knew more than he realized. “Okay,” he said, reevaluating. “That’s fine. I mean. You can’t help what your brain is doing.” 

“I guess that’s one way of putting it.”

“So, what, are we going to be here until Andy wakes up?” 

“The fuck you talking about, ‘we?’ Go to bed, dude.”

“Oh so I’m just supposed to leave you here? Just leave you here fucking crying on the ground?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Eddie said. “If you’re fucked up brain is so worried you’re going to let something happen to Andy, let’s see what it thinks with two of us here. I’m not going to let any fucking accountants get through me.” 

Eddie kept his face straight forward, but when he felt Richie’s eyes on him he couldn’t stop his own gaze from darting towards the other man, back and forth a few times before finally looking fully. “What? You don’t think I can take him?”

Richie was looking down at him, smiling only slightly, like he couldn’t help it. This close, Eddie could see the dark bags under his eyes, and the stubble on his cheeks, and the chapped skin on his lips. He could also see the bright blue of his eyes at full force. Eddie twisted his hands into the fabric of his sweatpants and looked away. 

“No, I think you got him,” Richie said, snorting. He slumped further down the wall, exhaling heavily. The change in position pushed him closer into Eddie’s side. Eddie tensed, expecting Richie to move away. He didn’t. “You really don’t have to stay with me, you know.”

“You think I don’t fucking know that? Shut up. Besides…” Eddie shrugged one shoulder. The fabric of his t-shirt bunched up against Richie. Eddie felt warmth through his whole body. “It’s not like I know where the fucking linen closet is.”

Richie’s laugh was choked out of him, so loud Eddie was worried he would wake Andy up. He tilted his head to one side, and Eddie could feel where Richie’s scruffy hair brushed his ear. He closed his eyes, smiling. There were worse ways to spend a night. He’d already spent the last few days sleeping in a car, he could handle a little more discomfort.

Andy woke them several hours later, sharpies in hand. Eddie drew a little car next to his name.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! make sure to keep an eye out on the twitter for future updates. if u want u could also [follow my clown account!](https://twitter.com/lordbastard69) sometimes i talk about woitw. most of the time i talk about nothing 
> 
> see ya laterrrrr


End file.
